Broadcasters want TDSAT to delay implementation of content order

Picture source: ThinkStockTelevision broadcasters plan to approach the telecom tribunal again, requesting it to delay the implementation of an order related to content deals between broadcasters and distribution platforms until the sector regulator completes the ongoing review of tariff systems and regulations.

The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), which looks into issues in both the telecom and broadcasting industries, had on December 7 ordered to make the reference interconnect offer (RIO) as the starting point for tariff negotiations between broadcasters and platforms, starting April 1.

The RIO, or content deals, must spell out all bulk discounts and other schemes being offered on the basis of regional, cultural, or linguistic considerations and there can be no discriminatory deals.

The order gives a choice to the distributors to pick and choose the channels and not necessarily the whole bouquet of a broadcasting network, on a non-discriminatory price. This means cable distributors could drop channels that aren't popular from their network, potentially hurting the reach and revenue of broadcasters.

Star India, Zee Entertainment and the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) moved the Supreme Court against the TDSAT ruling, but the court dismissed the petition.

The tribunal clarified that HITS operators (those who grab satellite feed and distribute it to multi-system operators such as Hathway Cable and DEN) are akin to national multi-system operators (MSOs) and, therefore, they will be governed by the same commercial terms for an interconnection arrangement as a national MSO.

The two cases that the tribunal had heard were filed by Noida Software Technology Park Ltd (NSTPL), the operators of Jain HITS, against Star and Zee Network's content aggregator, Taj Television.

"While customers will now get more choice to pick channels of their liking and only pay for them, for large broadcasters it would mean a sharp decline in reach for many of their non-core channels and also a subsequent drop in advertising revenue," said a spokesperson for NSTPL. "With this, distributors will get parity and they will now focus on service quality rather than just pricing," he said.

Jagdish Kumar, chief executive of Hathway Cable & Datacom, said the impact will be that the broadcasters will have to revise their RIO rates, which are unrealistic at present. "Currently, they give 90-95% discounts on their bouquet.

This will stop as TDSAT has laid out that any rates or discounts have to be made public so as to bring transparency and remove any kind of discriminatory pricing," he said. "This will lead to a paradigm shift in the entire broadcasting sector... end consumers will now get a-la-crate choice," said Advocate Vivek Chib, who represented NSTPL.

While the Star India spokesperson was unavailable for comment till the time of filing the report, Taj Television CEO Rajesh Sethi said: "The only change is that now the RIOs would contain all the parameters of negotiations, templates, etc., along with respective prices of the channels."